Introduction

MyGov, is the citizen-centric platform of the Government of India which empowers citizens to connect with the Government and contribute towards good governance, policy making as well as feedback generation. MyGov has more than 6.5 Million users who contribute their ideas through discussions, generating over 3.8 million comments on various issues. MyGov is keen to explore the power of technology to contribute towards better governance and address citizen issues.

In this connection, MyGov has partnered with NASSCOM and the Centre of Excellence for Data Science & Artificial Intelligence to accelerate MyGov’s initiative of technology to power citizens.

NASSCOM® is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPM industries in India. NASSCOM is a global trade body with more than 2500 members and its key mission is to accelerate the growth of the technology products and services industry in the country. The Centre of Excellence has been setup up to promote innovation in new technologies and enable co-creation with varied stakeholders.

Overview

MyGov has an operational voice helpline, which allows users to call and leave feedback and suggestions. These citizen voice notes are critical in encouraging inclusive and participative governance and fostering key policy initiatives for the government. The voice notes, primarily in Hindi & regional languages, are captured and sent to a team, who analyses the content of the note.

The next emerging billion are exploring the internet through a voice-first medium, and to foster their participation in governance and holistically consume their feedback, MyGov is exploring automated solution(s) for converting these voice notes into text, analyzing them and, contextualizing and summarizing them for actionable insights.

Citizens Voice Challenge

Against this background, MyGov in collaboration with NASSCOM and CoE – DSAI is organizing ‘Citizen Voice Challenge’ to provide a platform to the participants to come up with innovative ideas and solutions to resolve / provide automated solution(s) which convert voice notes into text, and analysis for decision making and policy direction.

Individuals/Teams and Companies/Institutions of all sizes (henceforth referred to as participants), registered in India with prior expertise in Natural Language Processing and Voice to Text conversion, are eligible to participate in the challenge. Qualified participants will be provided with ~6,000 voice notes as training data to develop the model. The evaluation will be done in three stages to shortlist the top 10 participants across India who will be eligible to commercialize their developed solution with MyGov.

The 3 Grand Winners will be also be recognized on a public forum for their effort, frugal innovation and valuable contribution.

Eligibility

The contest is open to individuals/teams and companies/institutions of all sizes, registered in India with prior expertise in Natural Language Processing and Voice to Text conversion.

Participants are also allowed and encouraged to collaborate and create a common team if they differ in their expertise / bring complementary capabilities. For example: a Voice to Text conversion participant combining with a Speech Analytics participant.

Each team must appoint a “Team Leader” to represent them.

All participants are required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) covering and protecting the information provided by NASSCOM and MyGov as part of this project.

Selection Criteria

Stage 1 participants will be shortlisted on their prior experience in the ‘Voice to Text’ domain and the viability of their proposed solution.

Stage 2 participants will be evaluated on the following criteria:

Accuracy of the algorithm i.e. how accurately can it convert the speech to text.

Time to result i.e. how fast can the solution / algorithm convert the speech to text.

Scalability i.e the ability to handle large data sets and process them.

Intelligence i.e. ability of the algorithm to understand the context and synthesize the data.

Multi-lingual i.e. can the solution handle multiple languages.

Frugal Innovation i.e. the cost of implementation of the solution.

Stage 3 evaluation process will be explained on the day of the challenge.

Awards

The Top 10 participants will be recognized on a public forum for their effort, innovation and valuable contribution. In addition, the 3 Grand Winners will be rewarded financially. The reward will be -

Rs. 50,000 for 1st position

Rs. 25,000 for 2nd position

Rs. 10,000 for 3rd position

Timelines

14th September, 2018

Stage 1 : Challenge Launched

26th September, 2018

Deadline for Participants to Register

27th September, 2018

Stage 2 : Shortlisted Participants Informed

28th October, 2018

Deadline for Output Submission on Platform

16 November, 2018

Stage 3: Physical Challenge for Top 10 Participants

November 2018

Recognition of Winners

Guidelines

Team Leader must follow the below steps to participate:

The Contest is held in English throughout. All relevant information, including the online registration form, is in English. Consequently, each individual participant (“Entrants”) must be proficient in English.

The Team Leader has the authority to represent the participating individual/team/company/institution.

All prizes will be awarded and paid in INR to the Team Leader of the qualifying teams. The Organizers will not in any way be responsible for the division of the prizes among the members of the team.

Funds and Prizes Taxes are the sole responsibility of the teams receiving prizes. Prizes may be subject to tax reporting and other purposes. Applicable team-members agree to supply Organizers with any necessary information to affect the same and to fully cooperate in fulfilling all applicable legal requirements.

By making a submission in the contest, all teams warrant and represent that to the best of their knowledge, their submission is original and does not violate or misappropriate any third party trade secret, “know-how,” copyright, patent or other intellectual property right. Entrants also warrant and represent that there are no obligations of any nature, legal or otherwise, which would prohibit, restrict, or interfere with their participation in the Contest or submission of their design report, and agree to obtain any necessary clearances, authorizations and/or approvals prior to participation.

The Entrants agree that no information submitted by the Entrants will be treated by Organizers as confidential, including without limitation any of the information set forth in Section 7. For the avoidance of doubt, some information submitted by the Entrants may be considered proprietary, such as information that may attract intellectual property rights including without limitation, copyrights, trademarks and patents, any kind of inventions, innovation or novel ideas. However, by entering this Contest, the Entrants expressly waive their right to have this proprietary information kept confidential.

DATA PROTECTION, CONSENT TO THE USE OF PERSONAL DATA: Personal data (as hereinafter defined) provided to the Entrants during the Contest will be used by Organizers as well as by service providers (for e.g. website hosting services) engaged by Organizers as data processors, for the purpose of the Contest. The Entrants and all other participating parties including without limitation the Faculty Mentors, agree that any personal data, which shall mean any data identifying, without limitation, its owner, by name, NRIC number, correspondence address, email address and contact number (“Personal Data”) which is disclosed by any individual or obtained by the Organizers or its Contractual Partners, inclusive of their designated vendors (“Workers and Vendors”) prior to or during the course of performance of this Contest, shall be processed, maintained, disclosed or destroyed in accordance with the relevant terms of consent set out in the Contest Terms and Conditions. For the avoidance of doubt, every Entrant and individual who submits his or her data for the purpose of participating in this Contest shall be deemed to have given express consent for the processing, use, retention or disclosure of such Personal Data for the purposes set out above and in Section 6.

NO LICENSES UNDER ANY TECHNOLOGY, TRADE SECRETS, “KNOW-HOW”, OR ANY COPYRIGHTS, PATENTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF MYGOV, ITS AFFILIATES OR ANY THIRD PARTY ARE GRANTED TO ENTRANTS UNDER THE CONTEST.

By entering the Contest, each Entrant agrees to release Organizers and its affiliates from and against any losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind arising from (i) an exclusion or disqualification of such Entrant pursuant to these Rules; (ii) late, lost, misdirected, or unsuccessful efforts to notify winners of any prize; (iii) forfeiture of a prize and the selection of an alternate winner; (iv) late, lost, delayed, damaged, misdirected, incomplete, illegible or unintelligible entries; (v) telephone, electronic, hardware or software program, network, Internet, or computer malfunctions, failures or difficulties of any kind; (vi) failed, incomplete, garbled or delayed computer transmissions; (vii) any condition caused by events beyond Organizer’s control that may cause the Contest to be disrupted or corrupted; and (viii) any injuries, losses or damages of any kind relating to participation in this Contest.

The Organizers reserves the right to cancel, terminate, modify or (temporarily) suspend this Contest where required by law or if there is an impediment to the performance of this contract due to a breach by any of the Organizer’s contractual partners, or a delay in funding, or a force majeure event, or it becomes technically corrupted or if for any reason the Internet portion of the Contest is not capable of running as planned, including infections by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other causes beyond Organizer’s control, which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Contest. The organizers further reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify anyone found to have manipulated the Contest or its operation. In addition, the organizers at its sole discretion may disqualify any Entrant at any stage of the Contest without being required to specify any reasons in that regard.

In respect of any suits, actions, proceedings, claims or disputes in relation to this contest, the courts situated at New Delhi, India shall enjoy sole jurisdiction.